New York real estate is some of the most desirable and expensive in the world, but the ever-fluctuating price of a square foot is unquestionably dwarfed by the value of human life. This year, the real estate industry lost two figures whose talents transcended leasing and sales

Ada Louise Huxtable, who in 1963 became the first full-time architecture critic at an American newspaper, died yesterday in New York at 91-years-old.

Ms. Huxtable was named architecture critic by the New York Times at a time when steamrolling urban planners–most famously Robert Moses–were doing battle in the court of public opinion with members of the burgeoning preservation movement like Jane Jacobs, whose seminal book, The Death and Life of Great American Cities, was published in 1961.

Ms. Huxtable sided with the preservationists as she redefined modern architectural journalism.
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